Seven Virtues
by Fool-Saint
Summary: Fifth Business. Series of seven short works of fiction written to the themes of the seven heavenly virtues. 3: Kindness. Boy Staunton's playmate grew up but he still does his chores. Honestly, who still does their chores when they grow up, anyway?
1. Leavings Patience

Leavings

b Author: /b lj user"foolsaint" 

b Fandom: /b Fifth Business, b Characters/Pairing: /b Dunstan Ramsay, Boy Staunton, mentions of Leola Cruikshank

b Prompt: /b Prompt # 5: Patience

b Word Count: /b 453, b Rating: /b PG

b Disclaimer: /b This is a work of fiction based within the framework of Robertson Davies' Deptford trilogy. All references to characters or events are his own and I claim no ownership of any such names. It is not meant in any way to be used for profit. The work of fiction itself is my own material and I would appreciate it not be reproduced without permission.

b Author's Notes: /b Boy Staunton may never know what he wants, but he certainly doesn't want to wait around to find out.

Where Leola was concerned, Boy waited to the very last. She was the only thing, it seemed, that he was prepared to wait for. He made it into a great gesture of magnanimity each time we spoke.

"If you're not prepared to wait for the ones you love," he'd say, heaving a sigh that gave away just how much he felt he was sacrificing, "then you'd die tired and lonely," he'd continue with an air of superiority and he would lean back smugly, satisfied that he'd been appropriately generous with the sweetheart from his youth.

He waited, but it was easy to tell as I spoke with him every week, that his great gift to poor, simple, awkward Leola of Deptford was running out. He waited patiently for Leola to grow up; to 'grow into herself' as Boy was so fond of saying, but he gave a little hiss on the last syllable so that I knew just how much his patience was costing him. I wonder now if he wasn't already trying to foist her off onto me already.

I had never thought, not until much later, that this was when he'd got bored with her. That the sheen had already gone off of her long ago and that he had moved on even while pretending to wait for Percy Boyd Staunton's girl to evolve, as he had, into something exquisite and precious, into some lovely gem that he could, finally, show off to all his friends. She never did, and I don't think that Boy ever held out much hope anyway.

Still, it looked grand among his friends as he continued to hold things together with the poor girl, always patient with her inadequacies even as he lamented his burden to anyone with an ear to listen, especially if it was me who was listening.

With me he would wail just as much as always, and always in a tone which would suggest that it was my responsibility to take him away from her, from the burden of teaching her how things really worked. I think this was what he was really waiting for in all of it, I think. He wanted me to say it was okay to leave her; wanted me to ask him to leave her. I didn't and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been better for both of them if I had.

At Leola's funeral, when I was there and Boy was not, I wondered if he had waited for my say so at all. Boy had, it slowly became clear to me as I took care of Leola's final journey and cared for her son, that he had given up on her long ago.


	2. The Apprentice Diligence

The Apprentice

PG Fifth Business Gen

Paul Dempster (Magnus Eisengrim), Dunstable (Dunstan) Ramsay, Mentions, if you're paying close attention, to Percy Boyd (Boy) Staunton

Written for the Seven Virtues challence, Diligence

This is a work of fiction written within the framework and using characters from the "Deptford Trilogy" by Robertson Davies. I claim no ownership of Deptford or anyone who grew up there and I am making no money for my trouble. Jut having some fun kids.

Somewhere, sometime, the magic wore off of Dunstable Ramsay. But where did it go?

"Listen now, Paul. The trick is to have them think that you're being perfectly honest and straight-up with them."

Dunny was reading it clean from the book when he said things like that, and I would later learn that anybody who knew him knew he would say nothing of the sort out loud of his own volition, but to me it sounded like genius and I attributed it all to Dunny. He was all I had, he had to be brilliant. He was, too, at my age of three, a brilliant man and all his awkwardness and all his fumbles were invisible to me. His word was truth and law to me. He was unable to deceive me.

"Now Paul, if you flourish this hand like i so /i and quietly tuck the card away like i so /i with that one, nobody will ever be the wiser."

He was always frank with i me /i , so I never believed there could ever be fault in Dunny's words. When he promised me that the world wished nothing more than to be deceived, and that they would laugh in amazement and applaud each trick, I knew it had to be true. How could it not be? Dunny told me.

"No, no, Paul, you palm and secure six half-crowns like i this /i ."

A child's eye so often chooses not to see your mistakes, and I never saw Dunny's, even when I was right and he was not, his advice was divine edict and I drank it up like a tramp whom was dying of thirst.

"Come now, Paul, even Percy Boyd has his dirty secrets. Did you know his mother still calls him Pidgy Boy-Boy?"

I often cared little for the lessons as Dunny spoke with me, teaching me far more than simply conjuring. He read to me and promised me that the world was not really so cruel as what I had seen of it. It felt good to hear that truth from him as the boys outside cried names on the street and threw stones through my window. The hateful things were wrong, they had to be. Dunny said so.

"It's all right, Paul, there is no problem that you will be unable to solve on your own, in your own idiom. You are smarter than anybody gives you credit for."

Dunny often had laws so different from my father that I often wondered how he could have it so wrong. My father meant well, I knew it and I knew that in his way, he loved me so I never openly defied him, but he was misguided. I would listen to my father and obey at home but in my heart, Dunny was right. After all, cards couldn't be evil. Not when you could make them turn such magnificent flips and hops and dance is such fabulous ways.

"Try this, Paul, and your audience will be so amazed they'll love you for good."

Never had I imagined that Dunny might possibly have lied. I did not know what exaggeration was and never imagined a world in which things might have been different than what he told me. The night I brought home all I learned those afternoons in the library, I came to the dinner table with my stomach already full of nerves and lurching with excitement as I so delicately gathered my father's coins right off the table under his nose. My insides twisted in knots as I waited for him to finally praise me and I could feel nothing but a lost confusion as he instead howled and demanded I return his money. My mother secretly smiled at me as I did; she understood what my father did not as he demanded to know how, and who taught me, and that I never see Dunny again.

"Don't worry, Paul, we can meet in secret, and we still have the stories."

Even then I believed Dunny's words. They were shaken inside of me but still rang clear and strong in my heart as he came to see me and my mother. He cared deeply for me and for my mother and though he was persecuted in my name by my father, I knew who loved me and who did not.

"It's alright Paul; I will never let anything happen to you. I will keep you safe."

Dunny never said that he would keep me safe, but nonetheless I came to believe it. Dunny was there, even though he had been banished from our Eden in the Deptford library while sometimes I wondered where my father was. He would never protect me. Dunny, however, I came to believe that even though he never said so, might. In time I also came to believe that he had said he would.

"I'm sorry, Paul."

It was never in Dunny's way to say that he was sorry unless he felt that he was in the wrong. Since all he did was find my mother, not cause her shame, he never did apologise to me. Though he was always there, steadfast in his commitment to us, he never did say sorry for lying to me of for letting my father tie Mother to a rope in our house. He never said 'I'm sorry' when his friend cried i 'hoor' /i through our window and he never allowed me to fight back against Percy Boyd and I knew he'd never stand up to his friend himself.

"Where did you go, Paul? How did you come to be here?"

Dunny called me Paul even though he knew I was now somebody else; somebody who cared little for false gods or teachers who had lied to me. He, too, was somebody new but I never saw it as I told that I had run away with the circus and had found a new teacher whose word had become divine edict. Dunny listened with all the care that he had shown in my past life as I told him of my new teacher and how I learned of all the ugly things lurking in the Canadian countryside.

"Your mother went mad looking for you, Paul."

I couldn't even remember my mother when Dunny spoke of her and I chose not to even try, even though he persisted. Still, he spoke of her in such a manner that though we were both different people than we were then, and a world away from Deptford, his voice stirred in me again, the Dunny whose word was truth and law and was incapable of deception or betrayal flickered into place before my eyes. It only lasted a moment but it moved me to where I had to have him stay. Still, I no longer believed his words.

"This, Magnus, is where I leave you."

I don't know when Dunstan started calling me by my new name but I remember feeling the loss inside of me. Paul slipped away from me, chased by the northern wolf I had become and Dunny went with him. Dunstan stood before me, all the awe, bewilderment and admiration I once held gone along with his former self though he had held it inside of me for so long. The teacher now still remained, but none of the magic. For the magic, the awe, the bewilderment, he looked breathlessly upon me.

"Come away, Dunstan. Leave all of this and retire with me."


	3. Mad Mary Kindness

Mad Mary

G, Fifth Business

Boy Staunton, Dunstan Ramsay

Live Journal 7 Virtues challenge Prompt: Kindness. 799 Words

Boy Staunton's playmate grew up, but he has not neglected his chores. Honestly, who still _does_ his chores when he grows up, anyway?

The Bughouse woman? The _Bughouse_ woman! Dunny was still looking after her? Dunstan, i his /i Dunny was still waiting on and caring for that wretched madwoman! The very notion made Boy sick with fury; for God's sake, who on Earth keeps doing their chores when they grow up? That sort of thing, Boy supposed, was okay for people like Dunny when they are young and their mothers made them do it, and what a mother Dunny had had in his youth, but for a grown man? Unheard of! It wasn't even his own mother. Incensed, Boy laid down the notice naming Dunstan Ramsay as Mary Demptster's guardian, returning it to Dunstan's desk where he found it, as he found it, before he left.

The notion continued to sicken Boy as he stalked away from Dunstan's office and to his car, which he nearly ran off the road as he pictured Dunny sitting with her, reading her stories, helping her to eat, inviting her into his home, washing her, for god's sake! Dunny? Washing the Bughouse woman? That alone nearly made Boy heave.

He would have to, thought Boy as he sank into his chair and had a stiff drink made for him. It's not as though Dunny has any means to have that loon taken care of. That thought in his mind, Boy wondered how long it would be until Mary Dempster became his problem, too. He didn't touch his drink when it was brought to him, he was too busy imagining Dunny pleading with him on behalf of his childhood charge.

"Please boy," Dunny would say. "Mrs. Dempster needs you as much as she needs me. Help me find somewhere nice for her," he would implore, and Boy knew he wouldn't find it in him to say no. Dunny was always taking advantage of Boy's great generosity and of his weakness for him. _Honestly_.

Try as he might, Boyt could not dismiss the images of the filthy, foolish preacher's wife that had once consumed all of Dunny's playtime with her idiocy and with her incompetence. Now, in her old age, Dunny would put his time into her yet again, only this time he had a life, obligations. She would be the death of him and poor, good hearted Dunny had no idea.

Then again, mused Boy, fighting off this newest wave of nausea, would it be so bad if he got involved? What harm could ever be done by giving an old woman from Deptford somewhere decent to end her days? It would certainly keep Dunny from going mad himself from looking after her. Dunny had a good heart, he couldn't let him do this alone. The Deptford woman could never thank him, that Boy wouldn't mind so much, really. That Dunstan appreciated what he was doing for him, and for her, would be enough, and why wouldn't he? Dunny wasn't the sort to let pride get away of doing the right thing and wasn't boy, after all, far more fit to be this old woman's champion? Dunny would know that for certain.

Every moment this looked to Boy to be a better and better idea. This could all be very good for him if he did it right. Smiling for the first time since he found out about his Dunny and poor Mad Mary, he downed his drink in a single gulp and then he was off to the races. There were plans to be made and left to Dunny she could wind up anywhere. Dunny could be so tight with his purse strings and Mad Mary-- what a name he had come up with-- deserved the very best.

Dunstan would be the one to visit her, of course. His dignity must be preserved above all after all this charity, Boy went on in his head, deciding it would be best that Mary never know her real benefactor. She'd never understand, anyway. Dunny would have to ask, too. It would be too eager on Boy's part if he offered. And anyway it was none of his business untill Dunny made it so. Still, there was no question that he i would /i ask, and when Dunny did, Boy would be there, the plan in hand.

Boy planned for days, his scheme becoming more elaborate with each passing hour. So caught up in it was he that it never occurred to Boy that Dunny might not come to him, and scheme though Boy did, Dunstan never approached him. Dunny never mentionned Mad Mary at all, not even in passing, to Boy and he certainly never asked for help. Boy never really even noticed; already bored witrh her after a fortnight, he forgot the wretched Bughouse woman all over again until long after her death. He didn't even know she had died.


End file.
